Mobility – My TechDecisionshttps://mytechdecisions.com
The end user’s first and last stop for making technology decisionsWed, 21 Feb 2018 21:00:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://s3.amazonaws.com/techdecisions/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/21162010/cropped-TD-icon1-1-32x32.pngMobility – My TechDecisionshttps://mytechdecisions.com
3232Want To Know Why Your Wi-Fi Stinks? There Are Apps For That.https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/wi-fi-stinks-apps/
https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/wi-fi-stinks-apps/#respondThu, 08 Feb 2018 15:00:03 +0000https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=10821End users can now use apps to determine why their Wi-Fi signal isn’t up to par, and locate a solution to boost their connection.

]]>For end users struggling with poor Wi-Fi signals, Gizmodo put together a list of apps that detect where Wi-Fi is failing, and devise solutions to improve it.

To start, Gizmodo recommends that end users determine their Wi-FI’s current download and upload speeds, and check them against the figures your Internet Service Provider (ISP) promised. Once you have that data, apps like Ookla Speed test and Netflix’s Fast Speed test can conduct basic troubleshooting and help determine a better solution.

Outside of speed, end users can get a deeper look at their Wi-Fi troubles with analyzer apps, such as Wi-Fi Analyzer. These apps give readings on Wi-Fi strength and channel congestion, revealing the different wireless channels being used by local devices, and how busy each one is, Gizmodo reports. Other apps, like Wi-Fi Heatmap even allow end users to mark Wi-Fi signal strength on a map of their home or business once they sketch out a floor plan.

From there, apps can be coupled with other hardware to deliver a stronger Wi-Fi signal, Gizmodo says. For example, end users might purchase a Wi-Fi booster or repeater, which pass on existing signals to more areas in their homes or workspaces. Powerline networking kits, which Gizmodo says give end users “faster speeds and more reliable connections,” connects via a cable to end users’ router, then pulls from their house’s electrical wiring to send the signal to other main sockets. Finally, mesh networking solutions split Wi-Fi among multiple devices, instead of drawing from one central router, which gives a stronger signal all through end users’ houses, as long as they work with their ISPs.

What this means for decision makers:

In the case of faulty Wi-Fi, end users become decision makers – there are numerous apps and hardware solutions to pick from. However, Gizmodo recommends doing “some detective work” to make sure the correct solution is selected. To start, end users should make sure their app is compatible with their mobile device; for example, Ookla Speedtest only works on Android and iOS, while the Netflix works on Android and iOS, but only determines signal speeds on Netflix servers.

It’s also a good idea for end users to consider educating themselves on how Wi-Fi works in conjunction with the apps they select to use for troubleshooting. For example, end users who opt to use the W-Fi Analyzer app should know how to use the app’s features and switch to the Channel graph or Channel rating to see the list of available network frequencies, and which ones are the best ones to connect to. It is also good to know that the act of switching channels is done through a router’s settings page; some routers “will handle channel switching automatically…and moving to a less congested one can improve the signal strength you get.” Once these steps are considered, end users increase their chances of locating the best signal, and getting their Wi-Fi strength up.

]]>https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/wi-fi-stinks-apps/feed/0What’s So Great About Digital Out of Home (DOOH)?https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/whats-great-digital-home-dooh/
https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/whats-great-digital-home-dooh/#respondWed, 17 Jan 2018 17:00:37 +0000https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=10623The DOOH (digital out of home) industry is thriving, which means location data has cemented its place in technology’s present and future.

]]>Digital out of home (DOOH) media revenues worldwide are up 13% this year, with the U.S. estimated to expand by more than 10%. In actual dollars, that’s more than $3 billion in the U.S. and $13.4 billion globally.

And there is more exciting news to come, as Media Village/Jack Myers forecasts a 12.8% growth rate for DOOH in 2018.

All of this, of course, at a time when the rest of the ad market is lukewarm at best.

There are myriad reasons for DOOH’s outstanding growth and bullish outlook, but one of the biggest is its ability to not only reach — but actually target — consumers on the go.

Our society is more mobile, active and urban than ever before. And great location data companies like GroundTruth enable the effective targeting and re-targeting of today’s consumers.

Additionally, the audiences for ad-supported media inside the home is both shrinking and fragmenting.

According to Nielsen, traditional television viewing has been decreasing steadily year-over-year across most demographics. Similarly, time spent on desktops is down 12% since 2013.

Which leads us back to DOOH’s ability to actually target on-the-move consumers.

DOOH & Mobile Go Together like Milk and Cookies

Unlike many other media, DOOH is not threatened by mobile; quite the opposite, in fact.

The two activate and enhance each other. Together, they offer data maximization, customer impression targeting, multi-screen re-targeting, geo-fencing and attribution.

From Wi-Fi sniffing, to facial detection, to aggregating mobile IDs (in anonymous fashion), more and more companies are using some kind of location data to gauge who is in front of or near a screen to serve the appropriate ads or retarget the same consumers via their smart phones.

Companies like Intel, Bulzi, SITO Mobile, Hivestack, Vistar Media, Ubimo, AdMobilize, PlaceIQ, Measurence, Quividi, BoardActive, Linkett, Adpack, Imageonix and a host of others are in the location business, and see how location and DOOH lead to more effective and efficient advertising for brands.

And so it’s fair to say that location data is the new cookie, as noted by Andreas Soupliotis, CEO, Hivestack.

Companies like Hivestack and Broadsign with its new programmatic platform leverage valuable location data for advertisers and media owners.

DOOH is Out-and-About

This is not just theory; DOOH networks and their brand partners are using these tools today.

Lamar Advertising, for example, is serving real-time Chevy Challenger ads based on traffic patterns in proximity to highway screens.

Adspace can target State Farm Insurance Campaigns to homeowners or renters or auto owners by leveraging this important data source.

At a recent Advertising Week panel, Scott Marden, Captivate’s CMO, said his company uses facial recognition to serve specific ads based on the mood of the person in front of the elevator screen.

They also measure store and website visitation lift among Captivate viewers, and retarget them via mobile so they can be reached outside the office on nights and weekends, when they are most likely to be shopping.

Marta Martinez, CRO of Intersection, said her company utilizes such data as location, temperature, time of day and more to present relevant content to city pedestrians.

Intersections’ screens feature sound and motion-activated content that can be adjusted for noise levels and the number of people walking by the screens.

Escaping the “Smart City”

Martinez refers to this as “physical native” content, and she eschews the term “Smart Cities” for the more consumer-focused “Responsive Cities.”

Chris Polos, VP/GM of Verifone’s Taxi Media, says his company uses dynamic creative on taxi tops to provide real-time data, sponsored by United Airlines, on how long it will take to get from the taxi’s exact location in Manhattan to JFK and Newark airports.

Location data is indeed the new cookie, and it has truly been a game changer for the DOOH industry and the brands benefiting from this exciting technology and the data it produces.

]]>Founded in 1820, Indiana University is a top public institution with eight campuses statewide, students exceeding 114,000, more than 20,000 faculty and staff members, and over 600 classes.

Indiana University was looking to build a low-cost, end-to-end solution that had a holistic view of the needs of the different users. The administrators wanted easy-to-use, interoperable systems that required the least maintenance efforts. The professors wanted to focus on teaching with minimal interaction with the systems, and the students wanted to access lectures to learn anytime, anywhere.

The university’s main goal was to have lecture capture in every classroom, while having a centralized video management system that was both flexible and scalable to keep up with future needs.

The Tech Decision

For the last five years, the university has used hardware and PC-based software lecture capture systems to cover these classes. The systems were proprietary, difficult to operate and maintain, expensive (hence not every room was equipped for lecture capture), did not have media management, and lacked the ability to allow other video content to be integrated into their environment. To keep up with the new-era changes in the education field, Indiana University decided to replace their lecture capture systems with a better overall solution that meets these evolving needs.

First evaluating video management systems, they decided on Kaltura with its Open Capture standard support, better media management, and wide destination options.

With the Kaltura video platform in place for the past three years, the next step was to find a compatible encoder to replace the previous hardware-based lecture capture systems. Typically, the university uses appliances for capturing lectures in large and complex classes (with 70 to 300 students) as well as auditoriums. These classes require multiple-source capture, higher quality of videos, and reliability that only an appliance could provide.

The Solution

Indiana University tested nine different solutions before choosing the Matrox Monarch LCS H.264 encoder. Besides being an appliance that is easy to set up and maintain, the dual-channel Monarch LCS with frame synchronization is ideal for multi-stream needs, provides interoperability as it is based on open standard H.264 codec, and delivers pristine quality videos. With a low one-time investment and no annual fees, the Monarch LCS allows the university to expand the number of classrooms that have lecture capture appliances. The University also leverages the seamless integration between the Monarch LCS appliances and the Kaltura Lecture Capture software and video platform

By integrating Monarch LCS’s scheduling feature into the Kaltura video platform, interaction from the professor or operator is eliminated. The Monarch LCS-Kaltura integration ties them together in constant communication. Scheduled events are entered through the Kaltura MediaSpace user interface, either before or during a semester. These events can be changed, added, or removed at anytime—and the Monarch LCS picks the updates automatically from its end. At the scheduled event start/stop time, the Monarch LCS units automatically start or stop the operation.

The in-room camera and the lecture content (for example, PowerPoint slides) are captured with the Monarch LCS in dual-isolated mode. This enables, through the Kaltura multi-stream player, several dynamic viewing options such as picture-in-picture and side-by-side during the playback of the material while maintaining perfectly synced audio and video. This keeps the students engaged by putting the control in their hands.

After the lectures are recorded (either locally to an SD card or USB attached storage), the Monarch LCS transfers the files over the network to Kaltura, at a later suitable time, eliminating the risk of network congestion. An XML metadata file containing the video file names, length, professor’s name, and other information that is displayed on the web page where the video is hosted is also uploaded. Kaltura transcodes the videos to different formats and resolutions, and automatically publishes them onto the university’s Canvas learning management system (LMS) to be viewed by different devices (Apple, Android, PC, Mac etc.). Students review the lectures from Canvas, which is a familiar and easily-accessible destination for them.

Math, science, and economics courses were among the classrooms that were first equipped with Monarch LCS. The units remained unobtrusive and practically invisible to the professors and students. Each classroom setup is a little different with up to nine video sources—document cameras, auto-tracking PTZ cameras, PowerPoints, Blu Ray player, DVD player, etc.—connected to a video switcher. The switcher provides HDMI input to the Monarch LCS encoder. Supporting material on a laptop is connected directly to the Monarch LCS’s second HDMI input. The professors use a Crestron or other controller on a lectern to select which video source they want, when they need it.

Kaltura Lecture Capture software is installed on computers for software-based lecture capture in other classrooms as well as faculty devices for recording preparatory materials in professors’ offices. Since common PCs can be used to deploy Kaltura Lecture Capture, it is a low-cost software solution for mass deployment in smaller-sized classes, in addition to the integration with the Monarch LSC appliances in the larger classrooms.

The Impact

While an old lecture capture solution existed, replacing it with the powerful combination of the Matrox Monarch LCS lecture capture appliance and the Kaltura Lecture Capture software and video platform has comprehensively addressed the users’ pain points. The administrators now have a simple, easy-to-use, schedulable, and fully-integrated solution. The professors are able to put the system out of their minds and concentrate on teaching.

Finally, the students have gained the most as there is not only a clear improvement in the video quality, but they are also able to view the video according to their preference. They can dynamically switch to the lecture content that interests them—whether it is a full view of the professor or the supporting material, or a combination of the two.

“Matrox Monarch LCS gives us the dual-input lecture capture we need in many of our classrooms,” says James Scott McGookey, manager, collaboration technologies at Indiana University. “The affordable Monarch LCS is small enough to fit in our lecterns with little fuss and records automatically so our faculty don’t have to worry about starting and stopping the process. Matrox’s Kaltura integration has been a key differentiator for Indiana University. Having lecture capture integrated with our institutional video management solution has driven adoption significantly.”

Vendors working together to provide seamless integration between Monarch LCS and Kaltura led to automated operations, which in turn reduced the administrative costs. Most importantly, with the cost-effectiveness of both the solutions, the university was able to achieve its goal of having lecture capture enabled classrooms that much quicker.

]]>According to MIT Technology Review, more companies are realizing they need to modernize their workforce to compete in today’s digital economy. One way businesses are doing this is by investing in online learning platforms to expand their employees’ skillset and knowledge base in multiple fields, rather than relying on textbooks, educational videos or in-person classes.

These platforms are often used by employees who are looking to boost their salaries and improve their career prospects by working in other fields, such as the technology realm, but don’t have the skills or knowledge on how to acquire them. In one example shown by MIT Technology Review, Greg Wasowski, a recruiter at cloud computing and software provider Salesforce, wanted to work his way up to an engineering role in the company.

To achieve his goal, Wasowski spent hours a week on Trailhead, Saleforce’s online learning platform, to educate himself in engineering. “Within a year, he learned two programming languages, earned certification as a Salesforce application developer, and got a job configuring Salesforce software for customers,” according to MIT Technology Review. Based on Wasowski’s story and others, Salesforce continues to use Trailhead platforms to teach skills to its 26,000 employees worldwide.

Investing in online learning platforms appears to be a win-win for companies, colleges, and employees alike. On the business side of things, decision makers who invest in these platforms demonstrate how they value employees – giving employees digital tools enable them to further their education and career; it shows that the company or college wants to see their employees succeed in their careers, and earn the highest possible salary.

From the employee perspective, they are able to take advantage of new learning opportunities leisurely, and/or maybe explore career fields they never considered, or did not think they could attain due to lack of education or experience (such as, they could not afford to attend college). Such opportunities might similarly break down socioeconomic barriers among employees, too – everyone within the company or working for a college, regardless of their pay grade, would have an equal opportunity to use the platform to better their education and skills and advance their career goals. Plus, the benefits gained from online learning platforms come at no cost to employees – the ROI can be high here, especially if an employee can move up the ranks of his or her company/college through the education, skills, and experience they obtain through one of these platforms.

More about Trailhead:

Trailhead deviates from traditional corporate education tools like Lynda.com, Codecademy, Khan Academy, and massive open online courses (MOOCs) like Udacity. It combines interactive challenges with bite-size tutorials, game-like elements, intuitive design, and a playful tone—and it’s entirely customizable for the corporate owner. Most lessons and projects take an hour or two to finish. The system is equipped to check users’ work and tell them if they’ve completed the exercises correctly. It also awards them points and virtual badges that they can display on their Trailhead or LinkedIn online profiles.

]]>https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/heres-online-learning-platforms-earning-employees-better-jobs-money/feed/0Should Designers Be Preparing for Wearables?https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/designers-preparing-wearables/
https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/designers-preparing-wearables/#respondThu, 16 Nov 2017 10:00:04 +0000https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=9902Wearables are becoming more utilized on the consumer side, but do clothing designers need to plan for wearable technology for commercial use?

]]>Should we be learning how to design for wearables? My instinct says yes. But even if this technology flops like a fish out of water, there’s a lot to be learned about wearable UX that can be applied to web and app design. In fact, the entire concept of designing for wearables reminds me so much of the concept of mobile-first, which follows this very simple rule:

It’s easier to scale up for desktop screens than to scale down for mobile screens. Mobile-first helps you reevaluate what your responsive web design actually needs.

In this respect, designing for wearables is simply about taking minimalism a step further (and by minimalism, I mean the concept of simplifying experiences as well as the visual aesthetic). But before we dive into that, let’s talk about both the appeal and disdain of being an owner of a trendy wearable device.

Simple Tasks, Quickly

First of all, the use-case of wearables extends far beyond watches. Wearables can help you to maintain your health or track your sleeping habits—sometimes they don’t even have screens, but most of the time they do, and they’re very small (non-screen wearables usually transmit data to your mobile device).

But the biggest mistake that we can make is assuming that watches are designed to replace mobile devices. Most of the time, having a wearable device is about completing very repetetive tasks quickly. Let’s look at some examples.

You receive a call, message or notification, but your hands are full or your mobile device is not with you at the time. You don’t want to locate said mobile device, or drop the things that you’re holding, only to find out that the notification wasn’t important anyway. You look at your wearable device instead, which is always on your wrist and accessible without hands.

You need to refer to your to-do list, a relatively minor task that you must revisit several times a day. Instead of taking out your mobile device each and every time, you can instead refer to your wearable watch. We aren’t looking to play an immersive or intensive driving game here. Just simple, day-to-day stuff. A terrific example of this is Todoist or Wunderlist for Apple Watch!

Paying for stuff is another thing that you can do with wearables, especially if you have an Apple Watch that integrates with Apple Pay. Is your bank card at the bottom of your bag? Have you left it at home? Lost it completely? Don’t worry, you have your wearable device quite literally at hand!

Not all wearables are watches. Some wearables, most notably the Fitbit, tracks your exercise activity and feeds the data back to your mobile device when connected to Wi-Fi. Running while holding a device is a pain, but when you’re wearing it on your wrist you can accomplish activity tracking without having to.

Tim Keough is CEO of Sympli, a collaboration platform for designers and developers that works with Sketch, Photoshop, Android Studio and Xcode.

Wearable apps work best when combatting simple but repetitive challenges, such as the ones mentioned above, as opposed to complex, screen-intensive challenges like following a map. So, the first question you should ask is:

Does your app need to work with wearables? (Fun fact: Google Maps, Amazon and TripAdvisorall took their Apple Watch apps down from the App Store, because they were too difficult to use.)

If the answer to that was yes, then the next question is:

Can our app work with wearables?

Not every problem can be solved. Having a map on your wrist, in theory, would certainly be useful, because with mobile devices:

You’ve temporarily disabled the use of one hand

When walking around in the open with a mobile device in your hand, there is always the risk of device theft (watches are harder to steal)

But that being said, wearables are too small to display a map. Before anything, consider the fact that while you may be solving one issue, you may also be creating another, because your app simply isn’t suitable for wearables.

Personalization

Wearables, especially Apple Watches, can be customized—it’s one of the advantages of owning one. People love products that they can make their own, as it makes them feel like one of a kind—this is important to remember.

Personalization in UX design is about creating unique experiences for each unique user, and due to the customizable nature of wearables devices, we can capitalize on this concept massively. For example, Procreate Pocket is a (very) feature-rich painting app for iOS, which as you can expect, has quite a large UI that can be difficult to navigate on smaller iPad Pros. Apple Watch users can download the accompanying watch app to use as a remote dashboard for the most common Procreate Pocket tools. It’s your dashboard, with your tools, and you can use it to create your unique artworks.

Customize the dashboard, as you would customize the watch strap!

Another example is Instagram. Not many watch apps let you express yourself due to the lack of a keyboard, however, you can communicate with emojis!

Just like AR, VR and AI, wearable devices are another tech trend that we need to keep an eye on. Should you start designing for them now? Maybe—if your app is suitable for wearable devices. Now that you’ve seen some examples, you should have a rough idea of which apps work on wearables, and which are likely to fail.

Available immediately via the Samsung Galaxy App Store, the new service enables owners of Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note8 smartphones to deploy Amazon-hosted Windows desktops on those devices in a few quick steps.

Users can then enjoy a PC like experience, complete with keyboard and mouse, on any display with an HDMI port using the DeX docking station that Samsung introduced in March.

According to Irvine, Calif.-based Ingram, the easy-to-use service eliminates the deployment complexities that have kept students, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and other home-based knowledge workers from adopting virtual desktops as rapidly as businesses have.

Ingram plans to give its U.S. resellers a similarly intuitive and automated tool for installing Amazon-based Windows desktops on Samsung handsets later this year via its Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. The distributor already offers bundled solutions with the same components to the channel through traditional ordering processes today, but says that adding them to the Cloud Marketplace will make provisioning desktop-as-a-service solutions easier.

The consumer service introduced today reflects the increasingly central role smartphones are playing as serious productivity tools, according to Renee Bergeron, senior vice president of global cloud channels for Ingram.

“Our culture is fast becoming a mobile society and both businesses and home users alike are starting to want ‘on the go’ access to office and communication tools,” she says.

Equipped with a specialized, desktop-style UI complete with resizable windows and contextual menus, the Samsung DeX enables Samsung Galaxy users to run any mobile or cloud app they can get to from their smartphone on a full-sized display. Ingram views virtual desktops as an especially promising use case for the device, though, with promising implications for channel pros.

“There’s growing adoption for desktop as a service across businesses,” Bergeron says. “With the release of Samsung’s new devices and the DeX capability, we see this opening up a whole new segment for mobile virtual desktop computing.”

]]>https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/new-prosumer-virtual-desktop-service-ingram-micro/feed/0There’s an App for That: Mobile Devices in Educationhttps://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/app-mobile-devices-education/
https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/app-mobile-devices-education/#respondMon, 16 Oct 2017 09:00:06 +0000https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=9622The app and mobile devices have cemented their place as the new technology tool for the education space in the early 2000s. Learn more about how they're being used.

]]>Every generation has new opportunities and tools at their disposal, and educational institutions do their best to keep up. Back in the 80s it was personal computers. In the 90s it was the internet. And today, since the 2007 launch of Apple’s iPhone, it’s mobile devices and the app in education.

Much has been written about how Millennials are different than previous generations, in what they expect, how they prioritize and how they use technology. William Straus and Neil Howe define “Millennials” as being born between 1982 and 2004, while the Pew Research Center has this generation beginning in 1981 with no end date. Either way, there’s another group coming behind them – sometimes called Generation Z, or Centennials, the iGeneration, iGen or even Post-Millennials. We’ll use the term “Generation Z” here. No one seems to be able to agree on exact dates, but most demographers start this emerging generation somewhere between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. This means that, depending on your definition, Gen Zers are currently in the 13-23 age range; they are enrolled in school right now, both K-12 and higher education. And they are starting to have kids of their own – research at the University of Iowa shows that 90% of two-year-olds already had “moderate proficiency” with a tablet device in 2015.

So, tablet and smartphone usage is high in young people and is growing fast. According to the Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey , 78% of elementary school students report that they “regularly” use a tablet, 69% of middle school students say the same, and almost half (49%) of high school students regularly use tablets. Tablets are edging out smartphones with younger students, but smartphone usage has also increased across all grade levels, with older students using them more – the numbers are 53% for elementary students, 66% for middle school and 82% for high school students. 41% of all students (averaged) say they use a smartphone to do their school work and least twice a week, and 88% of K-12 students use a smartphone to do school work at least once a week. And, laptops are still popular – 83% of students say they use a laptop for school work during the year

Mobile technology use in both schools and private life indicates a sea change in the way students process information. It has been argued that, before the digital revolution, it was important to have information in your head, but now it’s important to know where the information is and how to quickly access it. (Just consider: how many telephone numbers did you have memorized 20 years ago? How many do you have memorized today?)

Ellyce Kelly is the lead Client Relationship Manager at Visix, Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Ellyce was formerly the Lead Software Trainer, and is now Visix’s primary communications consultant, working with customers to maximize their digital signage programs through training and assistance with technology set up, pilot programs, best practices implementation, content campaign development and ROI development. She has been with Visix for eight years, and has over 12 years of experience in sales, marketing, and public relations.

The Pearson study also looked at college students, finding that laptops are still the most commonly used mobile device for school work (87% report doing so), then smartphones (64%) and tablets (40%). However, 40% of college students tend to use two or more mobile devices throughout the day – 89% report using a laptop during the day and 86% report using a smartphone.

Sometimes which devices they use depends on what the school makes available to them, though costs have come down to the point where many simply buy the devices they like using best. 85% of college students own a smartphone (compared to the American public taken as a whole), 52% own a tablet and 19% own a 2-in-1 or hybrid computer. A report by Re:fuel Agency shows that the average college student carries an astonishing seven internet-connected devices with them on campus.

The trend is obvious – more and more people are buying mobile devices and using them every day for private life, school and work. Older people prefer laptops, then smartphones, then tablets, while younger people’s preferences are the exact opposite, with tablets leading the pack and laptops lagging.

But no matter which devices people prefer using, the tech is essentially the same. Programs are no longer called “programs” – they are “apps” now. Touchscreen interfaces are the norm, no longer seen as cool or futuristic, but simply as the new normal. Any educational institution that has technology that seems old-fashioned is going to be perceived negatively – hopelessly behind the times, outdated and irrelevant.

Schools for all levels and ages are struggling to adapt to the new paradigm which is changing at an unprecedented rate. According to McGraw-Hill Education, smartphone and tablet usage for studying more than doubled in a single year, jumping from 40% in 2013 to 81% in 2014). An EDUCAUSE report found that smartphones are used more often to access the internet (though tablets are right behind), and the most popular apps include academic and university-specific apps, education apps (Quizlet, Duolingo, flashcards), book apps (iBooks, Coursesmart, Kindle, Kobo), reference apps and websites (Wikipedia, dictionaries) and even productivity apps (Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneNote).

Some institutions are incorporating apps into actual classroom work – either publicly available ones or custom apps created for a specific purpose and curriculum. Digital signage and alert systems are showing up on campuses and in K-12 schools – not just to display announcements in hallways, but with messaging to portable devices built in. Websites are coded with HTML 5, making them responsive to different-sized screens. Streaming of athletics events, lectures and podcasts are becoming more commonplace.

This massive use of the internet puts a strain of old WiFi networks, so many universities and schools have had to upgrade their systems. WiFi access is seen increasingly as a basic right by younger people, and just like they will choose one cafe over another based on WiFi availability and quality of network, they will also start choosing schools the same way. With cloud storage quickly becoming another new normal (over half of the Global 1000 companies use public cloud storage for data), there will be even more pressure on network speed and bandwidth.

This techno-centric culture might seem new to the people in charge, but to students, it just is, and has always been this way. Both K-12 and higher ed institutions may want to consider drastic changes to their information infrastructure, rather than going incrementally. Look at the trends, predict what things will be like in 10 years, and then plan for that.

The faster a school can give its students a more “consumer-like” experience – which means one that’s just like what they have outside school – the more students will thrive in that environment.

]]>TechDecisions spoke with Sam Pemberton, CEO of Impero Software, about the company’s product EdLink, as well as mobile device management, BYOD, and analytics in K-12 education environments.

TD: EdLink is a mobile device management solution that allows for BYOD. How does the product manage students’ personal devices alongside school-owned devices?

SP: Schools with a BYOD initiative in place will usually have an acceptable use policy (AUP) that takes into account the specific scenario of students using their own personal devices. In many of the districts that we work with, a condition of using a personal device in school is that students and/or parents agree to install Impero EdLink and/or Impero Education Pro on the device for monitoring and management purposes, which aligns with the policy for school-owned devices.

The management of these devices (through EdLink) includes an ability to deploy and disable relevant apps remotely, and the real-time monitoring (through Impero Education Pro) gives staff full visibility of student’s screens, when on the school network. This helps to focus students and ensure they are kept on task, in turn improving learning outcomes for the school and the student. It also enhances the internet safety policies within a school to ensure students are behaving responsibly online.

TD: What has the reaction been like from students regarding privacy? Are students or parents wary of allowing the school to access their personal devices?

SP: I think students and parents understand the responsibility schools have to keep young people safe in the current digital climate. We advise schools and districts, with the help of our online safety partners, on how to engage and educate students around online risk. Once they understand this they are able to make better decisions on their own. Monitoring software like Impero Education Pro flags incidents of potentially risky online behavior by students which can prompt these conversations and open up useful dialog around consequences and risk that young people might not have considered. It’s important to note that device monitoring is not about trying to catch a student or get them in trouble; it’s about protecting them and keeping them safe.

In terms of monitoring personal devices, this is often a prerequisite for students using their own devices under a BYOD program, so it’s up to the student and/or their parents whether they sign up for this. As I’ve already said, once parents and students understand that this is about safeguarding they realize why it is important.

TD: What safety procedures are in place to ensure student devices don’t corrupt a school’s network?

SP: Impero EdLink can limit access to functionality on a student device, specific to the individual requirements of each school environment. For example, by limiting certain types of applications, limiting access to, and the sharing of data, and limiting vulnerabilities at a device level, an additional level of protection is added to the wider school network.

Take VPN technology for example, which was used originally to create a private and secure connection between devices across the internet. It can be misused by students to circumvent firewalls and give access to banned websites. Impero EdLink allows schools to disable these applications ensuring that students remain protected and don’t accidentally download malware into the schools network. This is just one example of how Impero EdLink helps keep networks safe and secure.

TD: How do schools use analytics with Impero Insight?

SP: Impero Insight pulls Impero Education Pro data, from one or multiple servers, and presents it in graphical, interactive reports that allow staff to drill down to the most granular detail. This allows schools and districts to identify trends and patterns of behavior. For example, has there been a rise in students looking at extremist content online, or an increase in terms associated with cyberbullying? Staff can then examine the data in more depth and detail to identify if it’s a particular student, class or year group that are responsible for the trend.

SP: Once a school has identified these data trends, it can address them in the most appropriate way with students. If there seems to be a general increase in interest around a certain troublesome subject matter (self-harm, eating disorders, racism), the school may wish to hold an assembly on the topic to discuss the issue and offer counter narratives or advice. If activity by a particular student is flagged as a cause for concern, staff may need to schedule time with a counselor. It’s important that schools and districts use this analytical data to educate and mentor young people so as to change behavior.

The schools that we work with report an immediate impact on student welfare, as well as a longer-term reduction in concerning incidents (roughly six months into using this sort of software) as students start to take advice, recognize risks and change their behavior accordingly.

TD: How does Impero help aide student online safety?

SP: As discussed, Impero is all about educating young people to make the right decisions online. By identifying risks early, staff can intervene and mentor young people so that they make better decisions in the future. Impero detects these risks through keyword detection technology, drawing from a comprehensive library of terms and phrases, associated with various types of risk (from sexting to suicide) and developed in partnership with leading experts and charities around the world.

Impero Education Pro monitors the school network and when a keyword is detected, whether it is in an application, an email, on social media, in a search engine, present on a website or in a URL, the incident is captured. This capture is timestamped and logged with a screenshot, or video clip, to provide ‘who, what, where’ style information, putting the incident into context. Staff is then alerted to these captures and are able to deal with issues in real time as they arise.

]]>Communications networks have mostly withstood the onslaught from Hurricane Harvey and, by comparison, have performed considerably better than during Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in 2005, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Although connectivity was nearly lost in Rockport, Texas, which was hit hardest by the storm, FCC reports only 4 percent of the 7,804 cell sites in Harvey’s path were wiped out, affecting 148,565 people. By contrast, more than 1,000 cell sites were knocked out during Katrina, preventing millions of calls from going through, according to a post-Katrina FCC report.

The emergency 911 system in Texas has been severely burdened with calls, but “those calls are going through,” Adm. Jamie Barnett, former chief of public safety and homeland security at the FCC, told Wired magazine. “By and large we’re hearing that the cellular networks stood up. That means there’s been some learning.”

Cellular service especially becomes crucial during times of disaster as victims use smartphones to send text messages and communicate via Twitter and Facebook about their needs and their whereabouts. As well, disaster preparedness has become a critical component of cellular networks. Companies such as Verizon and AT&T deploy mobile cell sites on light trucks and are now experimenting with drone technology to both survey damage to their infrastructure and beam LTE service to areas that remain under flood waters.

As Wired reported, Hurricane Harvey was slow-moving enough that carriers such as Verizon, Sprint and AT&T had time to pre-arrange fuel delivery for their cell sites’ backup generators and ready their mobile cell units to be deployed into hard-hit areas. AT&T has deployed seven portable cell sites, two charging stations, and an emergency communications vehicle to the affected areas.

Learn ways to better prepare your facility before the next emergency strikes. Learn how now!

Texas’s 911 system has also progressed since the days of Katrina, Trey Forgety director of government affairs at the National Emergency Number Association, 911’s official professional organization, told Wired.

Shortly after Katrina, state and local governments began assembling lists of qualified telecommunications workers called Telecommunicator Emergency Response Teams who can fill in for 911 dispatchers. “When all the people who work in your call center have houses that are flooded, they’re in trouble themselves,” says Forgety. “These are trained go-teams of people that can go into the affected area and start handling calls for the folks who normally would do that.”

The systems, however, are not without glitches. During the height of Hurricane Harvey, some callers could not reach 911, either because of endless hold times or busy signals. That’s partly because the United States has partitioned its emergency response system, based on legacy wired phone networks that can only direct calls from one physical location to a single call center, according to Wired. To offload excess call capacity to another call center — as is common practice in parts of Europe — would be costly and require rewiring the system. Even if there were a way to handle the immense call volume, there would still be a shortage of first responders.

“I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to respond to really millions of people who are in distress or danger right at the same minute,” says Barnett.

Carriers Have Opposed Modernization

For all of their investments in hardening their cellular networks, mobile carriers have opposed efforts to modernize other parts of the emergency-response system, according to Wired. As Recode reported, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile have lobbied against efforts by the FCC to change text-based emergency alert systems, so they could provide more useful information to more targeted segments of the population.

Other promising innovations also face roadblocks. Mesh networks, for example, are decentralized networks that enable one device to communicate with another nearby device, which communicates to a third device, creating a daisy chain of connectivity that, in theory, could provide an entire region or neighborhood with cell signal.

There were well-meaning individuals who erected such mesh networks in places like Red Hook, a borough of Brooklyn, after Hurricane Sandy. But in order for mesh networks to functions as widespread substitutes for failed cellular infrastructure, smartphone manufacturers would need to embed that capability into their phones, which they have, so far, been unwilling to do.

“They see it as a feature that’d only be used once in awhile and is not a big money maker,” Jeff Robble, a senior software systems engineer at Mitre, a research and development non-profit, told Wired.

]]>https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/cell-towers-remain-standing-hurricane-harvey/feed/0Virtual Reality Provides Limitless Opportunities in Educationhttps://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/virtual-reality-provides-limitless-opportunities-education/
https://mytechdecisions.com/mobility/virtual-reality-provides-limitless-opportunities-education/#respondMon, 18 Sep 2017 09:00:08 +0000https://techdecisions.co/?p=9045Educators are continuously looking for new ways to engage students. Virtual reality is a new and progressively sought-after way to help students ditch distractions and dive deeper into the content they’re studying.

Out of the Ordinary Possibilities

Teachers are striving to reach students on a deeper level, and many students respond to unaccustomed experiences, like field trips or non-traditional learning methods. Think back to your early education. Odds are some of your most valuable learning experiences happened on a trip to an alternate learning space like the planetarium or a museum. Virtual reality can imitate these real-word situations, allowing students to experience and explore new environments that were never before possible due to budget or time restraints. Plus, students from rural and high-poverty schools benefit even more than other students, according to a study by the University of Arkansas. Apps such as Nearpod make visiting the Taj Mahal or the Washington Monument possible, all from your classroom.

VR can also be used to bring students together from across the globe, or even across town for students studying remotely. It can allow students who don’t have the capability of being in the classroom, such as when they’re sick, to never miss a beat.

Obstacles Plaguing Advancement of Tech in Classrooms

While virtual reality offers unlimited learning opportunities, there are some hurdles that face the technology. One of the biggest is that the devices can be out of reach for the general population. While the headsets are often low cost and high impact, they can still be difficult to get for every student in a classroom. While an average textbook costs around $60 and usually focuses on a singular subject, a VR headset can be purchased for around $100, and the content that can be accessed is limitless. While in theory this product is somewhat of a no-brainer when it comes to tools that a classroom needs, it is often seen as just an added expense and not an essential tool. As more educational VR content is produced, headsets will transition from being viewed as superfluous, to being viewed as necessary.

Another issue that plagues educators’ confidence in VR is the potential health side effects. While long-term effects of VR are still unknown, some users have experienced side effects after wearing the technology, such as headaches, queasiness or blurred vision. While these side effects are likely only be temporary, they can still be scary and cause consumers to be reluctant to replace traditional learning with VR immersion. As the technology becomes more commonplace, there will be more evidence of the impact that VR can have on health, making it easier to see if VR is the right product for a classroom.

On the contrary, VR headsets combined with products like Kortex have been scientifically proven to help manage stress and sleep. Kortex stimulates the brain to produce serotonin while lowering cortisol (the stress hormone). Relaxing, meditative and engaging VR content enhances the experience of using Kortex. This is huge benefit to students who are suffering from sleep deprivation, stress and anxiety.

Looking Forward with Virtual Reality

By utilizing virtual reality while learning, students can block out all outside stimuli (other students, cell phones, taking notes) and become fully immersed in a subject. When a student is tasked with making decisions throughout a game or simulation in order to accomplish an objective, it sticks with them longer than simply watching a video, hearing a lecture or reading a textbook. VR allows students to give 100% of their attention to the subject. Complete subject immersion allows students to engage and retain information at a high level.

What we’re seeing now is only the start of what virtual reality can and will do. It has tremendous potential to change the landscape of education, and also other industries such as gaming, entertainment, research, workplace training, workplace training and media.

Dave Hodgson is North America sales and distribution director for Zeiss Multimedia Devices, a group within the consumer products division of Zeiss, makers of camera lens, binoculars and scopes. Multimedia devices include the Zeiss VR One headset and future wearable devices with specialized lenses.